


it's a suicide rap

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-30
Updated: 2009-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first day of the end of the world. Coda to "Lucifer Rising."</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a suicide rap

They drive for an hour before Sam says anything.

"We need to get rid of this car." Sam's voice is rough, every word dragged over gravel, and he's so quiet Dean can barely hear him. "Now. Soon."

Dean hesitates. There's an exit up ahead: truck stops and gas stations and just enough businesses to make lifting another ride possible, if not particularly easy. He doesn't want to be hanging out in Ruby's car any more than Sam does, but there will be better places to find a replacement.

"Okay," he says. "Why?"

A long moment passes before Sam answers. "Because there's a body in the trunk."

  
In the potholed lot behind a plumbing supply store, they trade Ruby's Mustang for an F-150 with rusted fenders and a cracked windshield. Dean doesn't like the feeling of sitting behind the wheel of a pick-up. It's too high, too exposed. But the truck is unlocked and easy to hotwire. They've got a long drive back to South Dakota.

Dean doesn't look in the trunk of the Mustang. The storekeeper is going to have a nasty shock in the morning.

There's a nameless blonde, a nameless brunette, and and a hallway full of ragdoll bodies in the convent they left behind. In the painful light and cold fire and joyous song of a demon (_angel_) set free after millennia of imprisonment, Dean pulled Sam out of there without stopping to check any of Lilith's former minions for a pulse.

He doesn't want to know what Sam did to them.

The lot behind the store smells like asphalt and exhaust with a thready hint of damp dirt and leaves from the nearby woods. The hum from the nearby highway is familiar and the sporadic late-night headlights reassuring.

It doesn't feel like the end of the world.

Sam sits in the passenger seat while Dean gets the truck going. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't look at Dean. He stares at the crack in the windshield, and Dean's glad it's too dark to see the look on his face.

  
It's another hour before Sam speaks again.

"Where's your car?"

The words are sharp, too loud. _Your car_, not _our car_. Dean startles and hopes Sam doesn't notice. "Bobby's," he says.

A quick glance to the side and he sees Sam is puzzled. The sun is rising behind a haze of clouds, all pink and yellow on the horizon, and Dean doesn't know why he's surprised. He half-expected it wouldn't bother today.

But it's such a relief to see something other than bleak despair on Sam's face that Dean offers up an explanation before he can ask. "They - the angels, they grabbed me from his place," Dean says. "Didn't give me the option of driving."

Sam doesn't say anything, but a muscle in his jaw twitches and Dean realizes this explanation is a hell of lot more complicated than he wants to get into right now. He opens his mouth, closes it, tries to figure it what he needs to say, what Sam needs to hear. He feels like he could use a goddamned self-help book: "So You Started the Apocalypse: What To Do Next."

He jerks the stolen truck into a gas station a few minutes down the road. It's a careless move this early in the morning; clerks remember their first customer of the day. But he needs coffee for this.

And they've got more to worry about now than having cops on their tail.

  
"You did exactly what they wanted all along," Dean says. He's steering with one hand and holding a scalding cup of Texaco's grittiest in the other. He's been watching: Sam hasn't so much as sipped his own coffee. "This was their plan. All of it."

"I know," Sam says quietly. He's staring out the window. He hasn't looked at Dean since they left the convent. "Ruby said-"

"The angels, Sam," Dean says sharply. "I'm not talking about your demon bitch girlfriend. I'm talking about the fucking _angels_. That dickhead Zachariah and his buddies. They wanted you-" _You, me, us,_ goddamned puppets on a string. Dean swallows painfully. "They wanted the last seal broken. That's been their plan all along."

Sam is gaping at him now. Dean can feel it but he keeps his eyes on the road. He won't look. He _can't_. He wants to pull over and start shouting, start swinging. He wants to throw his coffee in Sam's face. He wants to swerve this fucking truck into a tree and scream at the heavens until his voice gives out.

He keeps his eyes on the road. He's afraid Sam will let him.

He's afraid the heavens will answer and it won't be anybody he wants to see.

"But," Sam stammers, "but _why_?"

There's a long silence. That's all he can get out.

"Because," Dean says. He had plenty of time to think about it in Zachariah's green room. It's a lot easier to concentrate on how much he hates Zachariah than it is to think about what he and Sam didn't know, couldn't see, didn't believe. "They don't want to stop this war from happening, Sam. The cocky sons of bitches want the war to happen because they're sure they can win it, and then they'll get to have paradise on Earth for all of eternity without us-" _Mud monkeys_, derisive and echoing in Uriel's voice, but Dean snaps the words back before he says them. "Without humans getting in the way."

"But... but they're supposed to..."

Dean's throat is dry and his chest is tight with pain, so fucking sharp he thinks _great, perfect, awesome time for a heart attack_, but his heart keeps on beating and his hand is gripping the the wheel so strongly it aches in every bone. "They're supposed to what?" he snaps. "Be on our side? Be the good guys? Jesus fucking Christ, Sammy, haven't you figured it out yet? Don't you get it?"

Sam's mouth is hanging open but there's no sound coming out and nothing except disappointment on his face.

The coffee is suddenly sour in Dean's stomach and bitter on his tongue. He lets go of the wheel to crank the window down, steering with two fingers and sloshing coffee over his fingers. He chucks the cup out the window and doesn't watch in the rear view mirror to see it splatter on the blacktop.

He half-expects Sam to scold him for littering like he would have six months, a year, a lifetime ago. But Sam only exhales quietly and says, "Yeah. I get it now."

  
They drive north and the landscape unfolds in familiar scenes. Forests and fields, shrinking towns and long-stretched highways, comfortable places Dean has seen before even if he's never driven this route. The sun burns away wispy clouds on an ordinary weekday morning and the only stations the radio picks up are country. Dean listens to the tail end of Hank Williams singing about the honky tonk blues, then the DJ cuts in with an accent just a little too twangy to be believable and chats about the day's weather report. Sunny and breezy on the plains, partly cloudy in the afternoon, welcome to the first day of the end of the world.

"If they wanted me to break the seal, why did they let you find me?"

Dean swerves a little, just enough to kick up a clatter of gravel on the shoulder. It still catches him by surprise sometimes just how fucking _brave_ Sam can be.

"They didn't," Dean says. He'd rather be doing just about anything else right now except talking, but he can finish the story if Sam's asking. "That wasn't part of their plan."

"But you did," Sam says. "You knew where I was. How?"

Dean used to pray every night. His mother taught him what to say and stood in the doorway while he knelt beside his childhood bed and recited the words like a nursery rhyme, quick and easy in the cadence of obedience. Then she died. She died, and she took the best part of his father with her and left the weight of her choices behind, and eventually Dean realized nobody had ever been listening.

He knows now Mom had understood that all along. But she taught him to pray anyway. She told him angels were watching over him, and she let him believe in the comfort of beauty and light and the graceful, gentle whisper of wings.

And he knows now it's not a question of whether angels are listening. All that matters is whether they care enough to answer.

He says, "Castiel. That stupid fucking bastard. He broke rank, went against Zachariah's orders - and Chuck, he helped. Cas busted me out of Zachariah's little party room, and Chuck told us where to find you."

He doesn't know if he can count all the times he prayed for release from Hell. If he wraps them all together in one continuous prayer, a single endless burn of desperation ripping through his throat, that makes a grand total of three times in his life his prayers have been answered.

He figures that's three more than most people get. He's all out of strikes now.

Dean goes on: "Cas did that thing, you know-" He gestures with two fingers and notices there's still blood on his hands. He doesn't know if it's an angel's blood or a demon's, or if there's even a difference anymore. "And sent me there. That's how I got there."

Too late. It had all been for nothing because he was too fucking late.

"Where is he now?" Sam asks.

The one thing that had surprised Dean most about Hell was all the light. They called it the Pit, they spoke of the darkness, demons swirled in menacing black smoke, but it didn't take him long to understand Hell was only dark for those who found darkness frightening.

For everyone else there was light. There were no shadows and no safe places to hide.

Dean wonders now why it surprised him. Hell is an angel's kingdom.

"No idea," he says.

  
He only drank about half his coffee before tossing it, but after a while he pulls over to piss by the side of the road. When he's done he wanders a few yards away from the truck and leans on a crooked fencepost. With one hand Dean grabs the rusty wire between the barbs and tugs idly, watching the motion travel to the next post. He thinks about empty laughter and broken bodies and bloody handprints until he hears the passenger door open behind him.

In the sunlight Sam looks terrible. His clothes are splattered with blood and he's as pale as a corpse. His hair clings in sweaty wisps to the side of his face, and before he tucks his hands into his pockets Dean sees how much they're trembling. The pain and nausea and hallucinations will come later; right now it's enough that Sam knows what to expect.

"Dean," he says.

"Don't."

If Sam tries to apologize or explain, Dean is going to start throwing punches. And if he starts that, he's not sure he can trust either of them to stop him. He holds onto the barbed wire with both hands, grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches, and he waits.

Sam's voice is small and scared when he asks, "What are we going to do?"

Dean doesn't know what Sam's face would look like if he could see it with an angel's eyes. He doesn't know if he would have held out longer if he knew taking up Alastair's knife was the beginning of the end. He doesn't know why an angel would sacrifice himself on Dean's word, because Dean asked.

He knows a soul is a physical thing. It can be tarnished and bent, ripped and broken, charred to ash and drowned in filth.

And it can be healed.

"We're going to fight," he says.

He lets go of the fence and walks back to the truck.


End file.
